I've been a bit of a curmudgeon for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, not knowing anything made me fearful of new ideas. Having accumulated some experience, I now love learning about new things, but I'm still pretty quick to assert that they suck. I have this behavior around technology, movies, tv, (a lot of) music, food, sports... whatever. It's sincere; I'm not just posturing to be funny, but I could probably have a little less fun talking about whatever hot new thing that I would happily do without. That being said, one of my favorite targets is new video games. Next-Gen games are often beautiful, fast, and capable of delivering a rich experience. But just as in the case of movies, they are too often an assemblage of powerful new visual techniques with little-to-no storytelling and what seems to be a general disregard for the user experience. I recently caught up with the rest of the gaming world and played through Portal, and while it isn't really beautiful, it is funny, fun, engaging, challenging and rewarding. It is everything a great game should be, and I didn't mind the behind-the-times look one little bit. So I'm making a decision: I'm going further back. Rather than looking to the best rated games on 360, I'm going back through PS1 and PS2 for the very best games that I can find. I'm starting with another run through Final Fantasy VII, and I'm taking suggestions from there. (Many people have already told me that I missed out big-time with God of War and GoW2.)

I'm looking forward to my little adventure, and I have a strong belief that after a few hours of gameplay, I won't mind the simpler look and straighforward controls at all.